Disposable absorbent products, such as diapers and sanitary napkins, with a topsheet comprising a lotion are known in the art, for example to deliver skin benefits to the skin of the wearer. In recent years the focus has been to deliver lotions to sanitary napkins and diapers that provide extra skin benefits, for example by addition of botanical ingredients or pharmaceutical ingredients to the lotions. Lotions of various types are known to provide various skin benefits, such as prevention or treatment of diaper rash. These lotions can be applied to the topsheet of absorbent articles, and can be transferred to the skin of the wearer during use. U.S. Pat. No. 5,968,025 to Roe et al., WO 97/05908, WO 97/05909 and US 2006/140924 describe absorbent articles having lotioned topsheets for reducing adherence of BM to the skin, wherein the lotion compositions are primarily hydrophobic. U.S. Pat. No. 3,489,148 to Duncan et al. teaches a diaper comprising a hydrophobic and oleophobic topsheet wherein a portion of the topsheet is coated with a discontinuous film of oleaginous material. However, in diapers disclosed in the Duncan et al. reference and other diapers treated with hydrophobic lotions, the hydrophobic and oleophobic topsheets are relatively slow in promoting transfer of urine to the underlying absorbent cores.
Separately, absorbent products have been developed over the last decade at least that provide a means to store feces or menses, said means being such that not only the feces or menses is stored, but also kept away from the skin, so that as little as possible contact between the feces or menses and the skin remains. Examples of such means include anal or vaginal cuffs, including topsheets with one or more openings leading to a void space there underneath, to store the feces or menses, said topsheets often being elasticated to form such a void space; structures comprising a transverse barrier to separate the front and the back of the article, to reduce soiling of the genitals with feces; absorbent cores with holes or cavities to store feces or menses etc.
However, there is still a risk that some feces or menses is not stored away in these type of articles, or that complete contact between feces and menses cannot be avoided in use, for example due to extensive soiling, or misplacement of the absorbent article.
Hence, there is still a need to ensure that soiling of the skin by menses or feces is further reduced or eliminated when such products having a feces or menses storage element are used.
It has been found that when a specific hydrophilic lotion composition is provided, a reduction of the adherences of bodily exudates to the skin of the wearer can be achieved. It has been found that the selected hydrophilic lotions herein can be effectively applied to for example the feces or menses storage element so that any feces or menses accidentally not stored in the element, and hence contacting the skin, is easier removed from the skin.
Furthermore, it has been observed that oil-containing hydrophobic lotions used by the care taker or user on the skin of the user or proposed in the art to be sued on absorbent articles can degrade any elastic materials comprised by an absorbent article, such as present in the cuffs, reducing the elastic performance of the article in use.
Surprisingly, the inventors found that the selected hydrophilic lotion compositions of the invention, unlike the hydrophobic lotions known in the art, are much better compatible with elastic materials, so the elastic performance of the article is not affected by said lotions. So, the hydrophilic lotions of the invention can be applied directly to components of the absorbent articles that comprise elastic material, such as the cuffs or an elasticated topsheet, as described herein after) or an elasticated transverse barrier, described herein after.
Furthermore, when the present absorbent article with the specific lotion composition is used, the use of a separate oily lotion or cream by the user or care taker may no longer be needed, reducing thus the risk of elastic degradation of the elastics of the article.